Friday, November 03, 2006

"Beep" "beep" went my mobile; I took it out expecting a sms from a friend, to my surprise it was from my bank informing me that my account has been credited with my salary. My first pay cheque!!!! Well I can't express how I felt in words. But my face creased into a smile, finally I was adding to the GDP.I went into flashback mode, as a child how much I had yearned for this day. What was the major difference between then and now except the pay cheque, the profile and the so called pseudo-maturity? Innocence! Innocence is what separates a child and man, you may say that as we grow we mature, yes we do but at the cost of innocence. I’m not saying that innocence ceases to exist but it is overshadowed and pushed into the darkest corner of our heart.Well looking back I can definitely say I would want to remain a child throughout my life and why not, living without a care in the world; no job pressures, no peer pressure, no rivalry, no impression management, no false prestige, no targets, no deadlines to meet, no bugs to fix.Well but as a child do we realise the importance of what we are having? No. All we want to do grow up, and do things that we see our parents/elders doing. We may not have the latest gadgets, we may lack the financial independence, no one may take us seriously, but who cares? There is one thing that every child hates, the sentence, “You are a kid now, when you grow up you can do it “, and that brings in him the yearning to grow up and taste the forbidden fruit.After childhood comes adolescence where hormonal changes pre empts us to be rebellious and defiant. I can say for sure we hate everything people tell us then, it is the stage when we think ourselves as elders, know alls, and our biggest enemies become our own parents. The common statement used then is “I know it I’m grown up, don’t treat me as a child”At every step during our growing up phase we don’t want ourselves to be labeled “childish” coz we tend to associate the terms responsibility, maturity, level headedness, seriousness to this terminology. So if you are termed as a child it means you are immature and lack emotional balance and not serious about anything. But we lose out on the fun and care free life we used to have. One may argue that, we still enjoy our lives, hang out with friends play games on our computer, we do chill out. Or that I’m waning away from responsibilities that have come my way. I do agree we do chill out; we do play snooker, pool or a game of bowling or match our wits against the system with the latest Playstation2 or XBOX 360. But seriously does it give u the thrill of playing cricket, with your childhood friends, or playing football in the rain, or a game as simple as hide and seek.Well one might think what this has got to do with my first salary. Perhaps nothing, just the fears that in my pursuit to be what I’m have I left behind the real me some where? Have I crossed the river of oblivion in my path to where I’m today? When I look back is it all void that I see.Alas there isn’t much time to sit and ponder, I have deadlines to meet, after all this is what I chose to be what I wanted to be, so why complain???